How to Bake a Cake
by TheExplosiveBubble
Summary: Through the ups-and-downs of freshman year, Tezuka knew that everything would be a new experience. But when he is given an assignment unlike any other, is he up to the challenge? Sanada/Tezuka, Crack exchange @ LJ


**How to Bake a Cake**

...

Tezuka had always regarded himself as a strong boy for his age—manly, forthright, and collected. Never did he waste a word or smile, but instead, he took his every action seriously and thoughtfully. Merely a freshman in high school, the bespectacled youth realized that his disposition was more than admirable. It was frightening, and such a temperament was certainly unnerving for his classmates.

But try as he might, he could not deny to himself that he was worried about his first year of high school. Although it was in the same vicinity as Seishun, the one glaring fact remained; it was not the same school. Despite his outward calm, he had been mildly disappointed when he had to leave his middle school as well as the captaincy to a team he had become fond of. Relief was granted, however, on registration day when Tezuka found himself accompanied by some old classmates while his parents cared for the admission bills. He and Fuji milled through the crowds of new students, curiously absorbing every sight and sound. Fuji seemed more excited by the change of scenery, but Tezuka was nostalgic, already noticing the absence of friends.

Following a career change, Oishi's father relocated the family, so his son had been transferred to Yamabuki. When Oishi had broken the news to his friends, no one was surprised by Kikumaru's upset outburst. What did come as a surprise to Tezuka was when he overheard the redhead excitedly telling his doubles partner that he had convinced his parents to allow him to attend Yamabuki, regardless of inconvenience. Two, therefore, of the middle school tennis team were gone. Tezuka had always considered Oishi a dependable friend and found himself missing the other's boy company. Then there was the remainder of the team—all of them liked by Tezuka, but certainly not as much as he had appreciated Oishi. Inui, same as the fukubuchou, had moved with his family and was attending Ginka. Kawamura was still around, but unfortunately, he would be scarce in Tezuka's life as the power player relinquished his racket for a sushi knife. Fuji had continued on to Seishun's high school with Tezuka, but he had dropped a bomb of shock onto the taller brunette when he informed his former teammate that he intended to join a journalism class instead of continuing to play tennis. In the space of a mere few weeks, so much had changed.

His small cloud of depression—however unnoticeable by those unaccustomed to his expressions—was broken by Fuji's asking him what elective he would be taking. The tall brunette had not thought of this earlier. He wasn't even sure what electives were offered.

Nevertheless, Fuji seemed to have expected Tezuka's reaction, from the hesitance to the lightly veiled ignorance. Tezuka would always remember with grim annoyance how the blue-eyed tensai quickly launched into question after question about what the former captain was interested in. Though most of the flurry of words was ignored by the taller boy, the mention of the boys' home skills with its instruction in carpentry and other household maintenance tasks filtered through Tezuka's sound barrier. He interrupted Fuji when he asked about the class. Blue eyes regarded him with some surprise, but the sharp color disappeared as Fuji smiled again and offered to get Tezuka a sign-up sheet.

Tezuka learned an important lesson that day—one that he would never forget so long as he was associated with anyone named _Fuji_. Never trust a conniving and smiling tensai who has a clipboard. _Never._

The fateful day was a Tuesday, his second day of classes. It was the last period and one of the few times he ventured out of his homeroom in search of a Room 107. He continued to glance at his watch as he hurried about the halls. When he asked a second-year where the room was located, the older boy gave Tezuka an strange look, but Tezuka foolishly thought nothing of it—until he slid open the door for 107 and found himself looking into a room full of chattering teenage girls and a female teacher. The blackboard had the menacing words "Home Economics" scratched onto the green surface in perfectly curved kanji.

He had approached the teacher, his eyebrows lifting slightly and a frown tugging at his lips.

"Excuse me, sensei?" he remembered asking. "This is...?"

"Oh," she had perked up with a blinding smile; "Yes, yes, yes. You must be Tezuka Kunimitsu." The smile became even wider. "There's an empty seat beside Miyako-chan. I'm very excited to have you here. Boys don't often join my class."

After enduring an hour of giggles, coquettish glances, inane chatter, the overpowering scent of perfume, and all the common indignities of the female race, Tezuka cursed Fuji for the younger boy's luck at having a different homeroom. In fact, Fuji wisely avoided his friend for the remainder of the week as if he sensed the fantasies of torture, strangulation, castration, burning, and murder that lurked in Tezuka's mind. When Tezuka finally did encounter his devil of a friend, any thoughts of retaliation were much too exhausting for Tezuka to act upon.

The first month passed rather uneventfully, but Tezuka was desperately looking forward to summer as the season not only promised reprieve from the class but also an opportunity to play tennis with old friends and rivals during the upcoming Kanto Regional. Even the teacher's promise of sewing projects the coming fall could not distract Tezuka. Somewhere in the back of his mind, a nagging voice perhaps tried to remind him of school, but the young man lost himself in the passion of the games and in the mixture of excitement and rivalry as he faced off against his old friends.

Somehow, the voice grew dimmer and dimmer every day and every week. When the Seishun team met against Yamabuki, the voice could no longer be heard over the cheers of the crowd. As Seishun triumphed, the voice tried to grow again, but Tezuka suppressed it when he played with Oishi and Kikumaru at the street courts later that evening. The whispers of the coming school year could only slither into his mind during the small pauses between the tournament games, but Tezuka accidentally found a distraction when—following the match with Rikkai—he found himself dialing a number in his cell phone that he had received from a fellow high school freshman at the spur of the moment. The voice remained quiet as what Tezuka had thought would be a casual acquaintanceship became more intimate. Sanada Genichirou proved to be one of the most enigmatic people involved with Tezuka's life, but as Tezuka spent more time playing tennis with him on weekends and talking over the phone on weekday evenings, the brunette discovered strange feelings of lightheadedness whenever he thought of the older boy. Confused as he maybe was, Tezuka at least had something other than the disappearing summer to think about.

But one weekend, when Sanada asked to meet at the street courts in Tokyo, Tezuka had been mulling over Seishun's recent loss in the tournament as the team proved to be weaker than the middle school team he had left. The nagging voice about school and that one dreadful class had been excruciatingly loud all day and left the boy with a searing headache. When Sanada arrived at the courts, he seemed even more distracted than Tezuka, and when Tezuka gathered his nerve to ask what was wrong after Sanada missed returning the third serve, the former fukubuchou surprised Tezuka when he marched to the other side of the court, grabbed Tezuka by the wrist, dragged him off of the court into a private corner behind a wall, pinned him against the wall, and kissed him.

"Tezuka-kun," Sanada managed to murmur in a deep, ragged voice when he pulled away.

The headache disappeared, but Tezuka did not noticed as he was captivated by the strong, brown-eyed gaze that was leveled toward him. He could not find his voice, and apparently, neither could Sanada. Instead, his arm found itself wound around a strong neck, and the taller boy pressed against him as he sought Tezuka's lips again, capturing them in a kiss gentler yet deeper than before. Silently cursing the teenage hormones raging through his body, Tezuka had found himself shaking uncontrollably as Sanada sucked on his lower lip and slid a hand under Tezuka's shirt to stroke the warm skin of his back. When they parted at last, sense seemed to return to Sanada as he abruptly pulled away, simultaneously murmuring an apology. Tezuka had forced himself to resist the urge to run away as he stooped to pick up Sanada's hat off of the ground. He had not noticed its absence while they had been...close.

Tezuka shuffled his feet a little. "I'm free next weekend if you want to play again."

Sanada didn't look at him. "Hn, that would be good."

Then they went their separate ways.

Later that evening, Tezuka had nearly fallen asleep when his cell phone rang. He answered it to Sanada, who asked in a fast jumble of words if he would be his boyfriend. Delirious and half-asleep, Tezuka said yes and hung up.

A week later, Tezuka returned to school and anticipated the great return to Home Economics on Tuesday, his mind still buzzing about his exchange with Sanada.

The remainder of the year turned out to be enjoyable yet trying. While Tezuka maintained high marks in mathematics and his other classes, Home Economics was a recurring nightmare. Sewing, for instance, was not a skill deemed worthy of his mathematical and athletic gifts when he found the mundane task of pinning circle A onto circle B so simple that it was difficult. By late November, sewing projects had been assigned, and the teacher told him that he could sew a shirt while the female majority worked on dresses.

"Okay, Tezuka-kun, how are you doing?" The ever-cheerful teacher leaned over his work as he clumsily worked the sewing machine. "Oh! Your stitch is very even. Good job!"

"Thank you, sensei," Tezuka said through gritted teeth, his bloodshot eyes sore from focusing so hard on the small needle moving up and down repeatedly.

"Now, let's take a look at the progress, shall we?" The woman smiled sweetly at Tezuka as she held up the light blue fabric.

The smile slowly disappeared as her eyes opened fully, scrutinizing the square of fabric with a long rectangle hanging off the center of one side.

"Uh...Tezuka-kun? What exactly were you sewing on?"

He recognized the sugar-coated tone which always indicated he had messed up, but he managed a subdued answer.

"The collar, sensei."

The teacher dropped the shirt back onto the table. Then, picking up a much smaller and more curved rectangle, she spoke in her sickeningly and condescendingly sweet manner.

"_This_ is the collar, Tezuka-kun."

A few months prior, Tezuka would have been embarrassed beyond measure, but hardened as he had become in the class, he took the reproof in stride and quietly began to cut out the stitches he had just made. As it turned out, his mother was able to help him finish his project at home, but she determined to make him wear the horrendous article of clothing the weekend after he finished, claiming that the experience would help him to not only appreciate store-bought clothes but also appreciate all the people who slaved at creating them. That Saturday, over two cups of steaming tea, in a small cafe, Sanada had looked questioningly at the ill-fitting shirt his boyfriend had decided to don. Thankfully, Sanada did not mention it, and Tezuka certainly had no notion to tell the older boy about the tortures of the estrogen-ruled Home Economics class.

In December, Tezuka had managed to run into—or rather he had been hunted down by—Fuji during the lunch hour. Tezuka had assessed that their conversation was not exactly awkward, but he felt that Fuji was being wish-washy in the way he jumped from one shallow topic to another, as though there were something he wanted to bring up but didn't have the courage to. Tezuka almost shook his head to remove the thought, for he knew Fuji well enough to guess that the blue-eyed tensai was purposely avoiding whatever topic he wished to avoid for a specific reason. What that reason was, Tezuka could only wonder.

The warning bell for the next period rang, and Fuji pulled himself to his feet.

"Say, Tezuka, are you free this weekend?" Blue eyes concealed themselves behind an innocent smile. "We never have time to properly talk."

What had they been doing for the past forty-seven minutes, then? Tezuka just shrugged.

"I think we should meet and catch up with everything. How about Saturday for lunch?"

Again, Tezuka shrugged, and Fuji took the ambiguous body movement as an affirmative and skipped off with his deviously silly smile firmly in place.

But had Tezuka realized the depth behind Fuji's motives, he would have all but shrugged. Come Saturday, he found himself sitting in the very same cafe where he had worn that ridiculous shirt in front of Sanada. As he felt himself slowly deteriorating before Fuji's scrutinizing gaze, he glanced at his pale reflection in the window just to double-check that he hadn't put on the homemade shirt again.

Fuji daintily rested his chin onto his interlocked fingers as he caused Tezuka to nearly choke on his tea with the simple observation; "You and Sanada seem rather close, lately."

Had Tezuka not spit liquid onto the front of shirt or had the burning sensation of tea settling in his sinuses, he would have thought Fuji's casual tone had been speaking about the weather or one of his cacti.

Unsure how much he should disclose or how much Fuji already knew, Tezuka averted his gaze and said in a calm voice that he and Sanada had started to play tennis together after the summer season. When Fuji made no further remark, Tezuka straightened in his seat but was immediately bothered by Fuji's self-assured smile, somehow like a cat that had successfully caught the mouse.

"So, how's Home Economics?"

Tezuka felt a growl tickle the back of his throat.

Fuji took no notice as he gracefully sipped his tea. "Ami-chan told me that cooking starts in January."

Tezuka resisted the urge to hit Fuji.

Later that evening, Tezuka's hands appeared to have grown their own sense of free will and were soon picking up his cell phone and finding Sanada's number in the address book. The call was brief as conversations via telephone were not the specialty of either Tezuka or his boyfriend, but the younger boy mentioned his dinner date with Fuji, carefully avoiding the part about the Home Economics class. Sanada made a strange humming noise in response, a noise which frequented their telephone calls whenever Sanada was thinking about whether or not he should say what he was thinking.

"Yukimura asked to have lunch with me today, as well," Sanada remarked offhandedly. "He asked about you."

The strangest thought about wishing he were a girl and therefore simplifying his relationship with Sanada flitted through Tezuka's mind. He asked if Sanada had a nice time. The other boy made his humming noise again—softer that time—but said yes. An awkward pause invaded the conversation, and Tezuka apologized for keeping Sanada from his training at the dojo and said he would call another time. Sanada thanked him, said goodbye, and hung up. Tezuka, on the other hand, tried as hard as he could to not imagine the cool, predatory gleam that must light itself in Sanada's dark eyes when he trained or the tautness of his muscles when he swung his sword with a quick and precise swing. He certainly did not need to remind himself that those were the very things he noticed when Sanada had first caught him in that passionate embrace at the street courts. He flipped onto his stomach and buried his face into his pillow, willing the thoughts to disappear into sleep.

The following Tuesday, the teacher did announce that all of the cooking assignments would begin after the winter break. Barely registering the words, Tezuka blinked from his mental countdown of the number of class periods he had left with the Home Economics class. But he accepted the news as he did everything he else he heard in the classroom, be it future assignments or female high school gossip—with grim apprehension.

Although he had hoped that the coming break would allow him the same relief that the summer had, he woke up early on the first day, sat at his desk, and watched from his window the little flakes of snow drifting lazily from the thick sheets of cloud. No, he decided as he listened to the horrible nagging voice behind his ear, this winter break would be very different from the summer. He later ventured downstairs where he offhandedly mentioned the forthcoming cooking lessons to his mother. His mother pounced on the idea of broadening her son's culinary horizons and offered to teach him some simple recipes in advance—so that he could handle more than rice and microwavable trays. Tezuka declined as politely as he could as he mind was racing for an excuse, but he found one in his grandfather whom he helped to fix the downstairs shelf that had a cracked board.

The next day when his mother repeated the idea, Tezuka was prepared as he had called Oishi and had made plans to meet at his friend's house. Feeling as though he had kicked an injured puppy, the boy fought the guilt down about his mother's pitifully disheartened look and hurried to Oishi's house. An enjoyable time awaited him at the welcoming house of the Oishis, and even Tezuka who normally felt misplaced in social situations was happy to see Kikumaru and Sengoku there as well. The nagging voice was quieted as the two redheads slaughtered each other in martial arts video games and as Oishi continued to apologize to his mother who halfheartedly complained about the boys' noisiness. Tezuka found himself even chuckling a little at Kikumaru's victory dances.

But when the redhead all but threw himself over Oishi's lap, Tezuka tried to not stare at the unexpected display of affection. Oishi was flustered, certainly, but the boy made no attempt to detangle himself from Kikumaru who happily occupied himself with clinging to Oishi and making odd cat noises.

"Geez, get a room!" Sengoku teased. He glanced at Tezuka who remained silent in his observation; "Were they this bad in middle school?"

Tezuka suddenly found his knuckles to be very interesting as he tried to concentrate on the calluses of his skin rather than how Sanada would react if he should try to mimic Kikumaru's tactics. Sengoku didn't seem bothered that the brunette had not answered.

"H-hey! We weren't dating in middle school!" Oishi protested despite his surfacing smile, but he quickly returned his attention to the meowing boy on top of him. "Eiji, come on, let me go..."

Ten minutes later, Oishi was thanking Tezuka for having his old friend over and commented on how nice it was to catch up. Although somewhere in the recesses if his mind, the mental image of Sanada grabbing Tezuka at his waist and pinning him onto the ground the same way Oishi had done to Kikumaru refused to leave Tezuka alone. But he allowed no outward show of his thoughts as he nodded and smiled sincerely at Oishi.

He shivered slightly in the early darkness of the evening, and pulled his coat tighter around him. The voice was deathly silent, but when the only reason for its quiet was Tezuka's unwanted, hormonal daydreams, Tezuka would have preferred the soothsaying voice.

The week flew by quickly as Tezuka occupied himself with chores around home and the occasional outing with friends, and every evening came the increasingly habitual call from Sanada. While it had been surprising at first to discover how much small talk the older boy could bring up, Tezuka secretly looked forward to each of these calls, accepting his boyfriend's voice as the part of him that he could be intimate with while he was unable to see Sanada face-to-face.

Therefore, Tezuka was thrilled—secretly so, as he would never admit to anyone that he was capable of such an unrestrained emotion—when Sanada invited him over the phone to stay with him in Kanagawa for the weekend. When he arrived at the train station Friday afternoon, Sanada was there, waiting for him. The older boy stood so tall and straight that Tezuka wondered if everything was all right. But the niceties were followed through as Tezuka bowed several times in greeting to Sanada's parents, and after the mother's interrogation of how Tezuka and Sanada met, the two teenagers were able to spirit themselves off to Sanada's room.

As soon as he heard the gentle scrape of the door sliding shut, Tezuka felt strong arms envelop him and pull him against a warm, large body. Sanada buried his face in Tezuka's neck and breathed in deeply, the silent words _I missed you_ the loudest presence in the room. Tezuka closed his eyes and allowed himself to melt into the embrace.

The weekend was blissful as everything blurred into a pleasant pool of family meals, whispered conversations at night, the childish snowball fight out back, the kisses shared in the quiet corners.

Saturday night, the two were again up and talking, both sitting cross-legged on one of the futons in Sanada's room. Tezuka distractedly realized that he hadn't thought about school up until that point, and the notion that Sanada kept him so occupied embarrassed him slightly. He had been examining the pattern of the quilt beneath him, and when he looked up, he started a little when he noticed how close the larger boy was to him. His reactions were too sluggish, however, and when Sanada gently placed one hand on Tezuka's chest and the other slid around the back of his neck, the brunette allowed himself to be lowered against the futon. His eyes never left Sanada's, and they only closed when the other boy dipped his head to capture Tezuka's lips in a soft kiss. Tezuka jerked when he felt a hand rub his side and then fall next to his thigh. Sanada pressed short kisses along Tezuka's jaw, and tremors shook the brunette unmercifully as his hands grabbed the cloth covering Sanada's shoulders. More kisses tickled his ear and then migrated to his neck where the shock of nerves caused Tezuka to sharply turn his head.

"My glasses," Tezuka gasped, as the pair nearly fell off.

"Sorry," Sanada murmured.

Sanada sat up to allow the smaller boy to get up and go to his bag. The entire time that he fumbled for the glasses case, Tezuka could feel the heat of the other's gaze burning into his back. Once the glasses were put away, the now sight-impaired boy hesitated as he rubbed unconsciously at his chest, sore from the rapid beating of his heart. This night felt different, as though it were going to be more than just kissing. Tezuka forced himself to let go of his shirt and crawled back to Sanada who remained where he sat, patiently waiting.

The heat had cooled off, so the pace was slow again as Sanada reached for Tezuka's hand. He caressed the pale hand and leaned close. Tezuka shut his eyes, slowed his breathing, and allowed Sanada to touch him. Breaks of consciousness interrupted when the loss of his shirt let sharp tendrils of cold air to curl against his flushed skin, but the cold was broken by the warmth of another man's chest and gentle, roaming hands. Tezuka again forced his breathing to calm as he lay on his stomach. He could feel something hard brushing against the back of his thigh, and it took little imagination as a fellow male to know what it was. Still, as Sanada's hands reached for the waistband of Tezuka's pants, reflexes took over, and Tezuka's elbow quickly met with flesh.

Hours later, both boys secure in their own separate futons, Tezuka stared in a sleepless stupor at the wall. The heat had not cooled off, but instead he felt as though he had poured a bucket of ice cold water over everything. The next morning, he wanted to leave much sooner than he had planned. Embarrassed and ashamed, he wished nothing more than to return to his own home, and of course, when Sanada's mother had seen her son's black eye and had worriedly asked how he had acquired such a bruise, Tezuka's desire to leave was only heightened.

Sanada walked with him to the station, wearing the black eye with dignity. When Tezuka tried to apologize, he brushed it off, saying that he shouldn't have rushed his boyfriend. A strange look had passed over Sanada's face, a mixture of regret and indecision, and although it lasted less than a second, Tezuka could think of nothing else during the entire trip from Kanagawa to Tokyo.

The Christmas holidays came and went, and the New Year was fast approaching. New Year's celebrations nearly shook all of Japan that year in their splendor and grandeur. However, Tezuka opted for the same route of festivity as his grandfather did; he said goodnight to the old year and greeted the new one in the morning. And it was in the stillness of the morning while the rest of the city caught up on the lost sleep of the night that Tezuka was once again attacked by the nagging voice.

Instead of distracting himself, he simply wished that the rest of the break would go by quickly. At least, he reasoned, the voice was quiet at school.

Perhaps one of the gods smiled upon the New Year's wish, and the remainder of the break was nothing more than a blur of meditating on quiet mornings, reading some books, and running errands. Soon enough, it was the last period on the first Tuesday of school. Tezuka found himself leaving the classroom in an uncharacteristically cheerful mood. The class had been spent learning about the basics of Japanese cooking—utensils, seasonings, names of different noodles, and commonly used ingredients. The teaching of cooking for necessity was practical, and as it was practical, Tezuka could better appreciate it or respect it even. He toyed with the idea of asking his mother if she would still be willing to help him.

Unfortunately, his good feelings about Home Economics were not to last, and during one particularly stormy day in February, the teacher wrote on the blackboard in her large, curved kanji—_Valentine's Day. _The words immediately evoked a voluminous amount of chatter among the girls in the class, fits of squealing and giggling bursting from many of them. Tezuka glanced at his watch to check the date—the ninth. When the class settled down, the teacher smiled her annoyingly wide smile at all of the girls and announced that she wanted to mix a little bit of innocent fun into her curriculum.

"Since Valentine's Day is just around the corner," she said with a twinkle in her eye, "I think we can all whip up a little something for that special someone in our lives. Choose what you want to make, and bring it next Tuesday to show me. You'll have the weekend to work on it."

She paused before clapping her hands together. "And of course, have fun giving it away."

The bell rang, and class was dismissed. Tezuka hurriedly gathered his things and desperately avoided the sideway glances he kept receiving from some of the girls in his class. This was certainly not an assignment he was looking forward to, but after school, he decided that he would head home and simply get it over with.

On the march to his homeroom, however, he stopped. What on earth was he supposed to make? He supposed that the teacher had left that up in the air to appease the more creative females in the class, but Tezuka was distressed. He had received chocolates from girls before, but he had no idea how to create such a thing. But then, he remembered that the teacher had not mentioned a taste test, so perhaps he could get away with something inedible but at least looked appeasing. Tezuka certainly was not planning to give his creation to anyone.

Well, at least he told himself that he did not _want _to as an image of Sanada pressed up against him, intense brown eyes boring into his own, popped into his head.

So there he sat as his desk, hours later. He had scrounged through his mother's cookbooks to find what he thought would be a simple cake recipe, but determined as he had become for it to taste well, he did not want to do it alone. But name after name was mentally crossed off the list of people whom Tezuka could tolerate divulging his humiliating predicament to. Oishi had been his first choice, but after reaching the boy's voicemail for the fifth time, Tezuka gave up. He considered Kawamura since his fellow classmate would be comfortable in a kitchen, but it was months since they had spoken. Inui, Fuji, and his mother were instantly crossed off the list as unacceptable. Person after person disappeared from the list until Tezuka would allow himself to dial only Sanada's number.

When a deep voice answered on the other line, the words which Tezuka had rehearsed in his mind fled from him.

"Hello?" Sanada tried again. "Tezuka, are you there?"

"...could you come over this weekend? I need help with something."

"Oh." Sanada paused. "I can. What do you need help with?"

Tezuka wheezed out a small sigh. "...I need to bake a cake."

There was another pause, but all Sanada said was, "Okay. When do you want me to come over?"

"Is Sunday alright? Around four?"

A familiar humming noise came from the receiver, and a short "Yes" followed.

Sunday afternoon came, and Tezuka had read through the recipe several times, still unable to discern what certain words were supposed to mean. The time was 3:50 when he heard the buzz of the doorbell. The only one of his family who was home, Tezuka hurried from the kitchen to the front door. He opened it to Sanada who nodded a little in greeting.

"Hey," Tezuka said with a small smile, "You're early."

Once Tezuka had stepped aside, Sanada entered the threshold and took off his shoes.

"I'm sorry if this is inconvenient," he said, tugging at his baseball cap.

Tezuka shook his head. "No, it's fine. It's only ten minutes."

As an awkward silence followed, Tezuka did not want to remember that the last time they had seen each other in person was when Sanada had seen him off at the train station—black eye and all.

"Do you want your coat hung up?" Tezuka forced himself to look Sanada in the eye.

Sanada started, as though he had been thinking about something else. His fingers dropped from his hat when he shrugged.

"Sure. Thanks."

As he handled the coat and found an empty hanger in the closet, Tezuka could feel the other boy's eyes following his every movement. His ears suddenly felt hot as he closed the closet and turned around to Sanada hovering by the entrance to the kitchen. Although he stared mostly behind Sanada at the array of ingredients he had piled on the table in the kitchen, he glanced briefly at Sanada's eyes, wondering with a stab of guilt how the black eye had fared.

Although both were usually quiet, Sanada seemed to sense Tezuka's discomfort, and when the shorter boy came within reach, he slipped an arm around his waist and pulled him into an embrace.

He placed a kiss on Tezuka's forehead, and said softly, "Don't be so nervous. We're just going to make the cake, right?"

Tezuka slumped slightly as he tried to relax around his boyfriend. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be."

He couldn't help but smile a little. "Sorry that I keep apologizing."

Sanada tightened his embrace and gave Tezuka another kiss. "Just stop." He pulled Tezuka by his arms into the kitchen. "Cake. Now."

"Yes, okay." Tezuka pulled the sheet of paper containing the recipe out from under the canister of flour. "Do you know anything about cakes?"

"Absolutely nothing."

Tezuka nodded and readjusted his glasses. "Alright. Neither do I."

"What does the recipe say?" Sanada looked over the brunette's shoulder.

"The oven needs to be preheated to 160 Celsius." Tezuka glanced at the oven. Yes, he had already done that. "Do you know how to separate eggs?"

The next few minutes as the two of them read through the recipe together ticked by slowly as they clumsily fumbled about the cabinets looking for measuring tools and some strange contraption called a tube pan. After a lengthy debate on what a tube pan would look like and whether or not there was one in the Tezuka household, they abandoned the search in favor of a square pan found in the drawer under the stove.

"Why do I put the bowl in hot water?" Sanada looked wonderingly at the recipe while his hands cradled a bowl of whipped sugar and egg yolks.

Tezuka just shook his head and told Sanada that he could use the pot of water on the stove. While his head was investigating yet another cabinet to find the electric mixer, he heard a sickening crack followed by a deep voice cursing. Tezuka turned around in time to see a pot-wielding Sanada covered in egg yolk, the cracked pieces of the bowl harmlessly floating in the hot water.

"Please tell your mother," Sanada pronounced slowly through gritted teeth, "that I am very sorry and will buy her another bowl."

While helping Sanada to clean the mess off of the floor and front of the stove, Tezuka was grateful that he had purchased another carton of eggs on Friday. Although he had tried to find the least embarrassing aprons for the two of them to wear, Sanada's had to be discarded after being coated in the grainy, yellow goop. Tezuka offered to let Sanada have the one he was wearing, but the taller man refused and wore the other apron as though nothing were amiss in the world.

Tezuka, on the other hand, had to bite his lip until it nearly bled to keep himself from laughing or gaping. Sanada and pale blue frills was not a combination he would have found possible prior to this cooking episode.

"Now, the egg whites need to be folded into the flour mixture." Tezuka reread the instructions. "Fold. Fold?"

The two looked at each other and then at the splattering of egg, flour, sugar, honey, cocoa powder and the occasional drops of blood that adorned the room about them.

Sanada rubbed his temple. "Who knows? Let's just stir it in."

Once the batter had been poured into the pan and the pan was securely placed in the oven, the two boys collapsed in a heap onto the floor, leaning on each other. Tezuka fiddled with the timer, setting it to forty minutes and then unceremoniously dropping it onto the floor with a clatter.

"That," Sanada began tiredly, "was the simplest recipe you could find?"

Tezuka closed his eyes and pressed against Sanada's back. "There are easier ones?"

He felt the muscle of the shoulders shrug beneath him. "I don't know anything about cakes, remember?" An arm encircled his waist as the torso beneath him turned. "Where are your parents, anyway?"

"Valentine's date." Tezuka unconsciously moved his face toward the fingers that were running rifts in his hair.

"Oh, yeah. Valentine's Day is...?"

"Tuesday."

"How long do you think they will be gone?"

"I don't know. Maybe another hour or so."

"Good."

Tezuka didn't resist the lips devouring his hungrily, and when he and Sanada moved themselves to the couch in the adjacent room, he didn't fight the hands that tugged at his shirt. And when lips found his again, a tongue curiously tasting the salt on his skin, Tezuka felt completely at ease. His head fell back against the armrest as his back arched into the heated touches, and despite the small bit of apprehension he felt, he ignored the worry as he moaned quietly and spread his legs to better accommodate the man above him. Wrapping his arms around Sanada's neck, Tezuka allowed himself to be overcome by the passion of the moment and let his emotions fly.

There was no longer any need to listen to the nagging little voice.

When the last sparks had left his vision and Sanada had stilled above him, Tezuka listlessly pulled some of his clothes back on. Sanada slid off of him to sit beside the couch. He gently pushed some strands of hair out of Tezuka's eyes. They both said nothing, but the tiny smile on Tezuka's face was enough for Sanada as he leaned forward and languidly kissed the brunette.

His lips were still brushing against Tezuka's when he whispered, "I love you, Kunimitsu."

Their eyes didn't quite meet, but Tezuka preferred it that way as he returned the words. "I love you, too."

The lips against his smiled. "How do you feel?"

Tezuka shifted a little and tried to not flinch as an arrow of pain shot up his back.

"I've been better," he replied honestly; "but I'll live."

"Sorry."

But Tezuka knew that Sanada only partially meant the apology as he again captured the smaller boy's lips in a satisfied kiss. But as Sanada dared to deepen the kiss and gently nipped at Tezuka's lips, a pungent whiff caught the brunette's attention. He tried rather unsuccessfully to sit up.

"What's that smell?"

Sanada lifted his head before a look of dismay crossed his features. "Smoke."

They looked at each other.

"Crap!"

"Genichirou, I—" Tezuka fell into a heap onto the floor as pain rendered his legs as useful as tentacles. "Ah! Ow, damn! Genichirou, how is it? ...ow..."

He could hear the oven opening with a high-pitched creak, and he heard Sanada curse again as the sound of a pan being dropped onto the stovetop met his ears. A few minutes of silence passed during which Tezuka managed to pull himself back onto the couch, and Sanada returned with a resigned look and sat down beside his boyfriend.

"Maybe it will still taste good," Sanada remarked hopefully.

But as the smoke alarm belatedly went off, Tezuka had his doubts. Thankfully, though, his mother said nothing when she and her husband returned half an hour later to find Sanada fanning smoke out the window and Tezuka sitting at the kitchen table his head buried in his hands.

Tuesday came much faster than Tezuka would have liked, and the entire day he dreaded having to take the charred square of cake to his Home Economics class. And when the teacher had barely laid her eyes onto the abomination, she smiled as she always smiled and told Tezuka in a chipper tone that she would like to see him after class.

"What, exactly, is this, Tezuka-kun?" Her honeyed words grated on Tezuka's ears, especially when her voice did not have to compete with the noise of the other students.

"It is a cake, sensei."

"Oh, is it?"

She scribbled something onto a sheet of paper. Tezuka couldn't help but notice that her kanji look significantly less pretty on paper than it did on the board. She looked up at Tezuka and then returned her gaze to her notes. She tapped the end of her pen on her pursed lips, and try as he might to not worry about the outcome of this meeting, Tezuka had never seen such an expression on the teacher's face.

"This is the seventh cooking project that you have gotten less than savory marks on, Tezuka-kun." She clucked her tongue. "I don't want to fail you, but I am seeing very little progress in your work. And final exams will be here before we know it."

Tezuka said nothing. He had already gone over in his head all of the negative remarks that she could make. After a painfully long pause, the woman clapped her hands and stood up.

"Tell you what, Tezuka-kun," she said. "Since your effort has been golden all year long, I'll give you a second chance. Bring me another cake next Tuesday that can be actually recognized as a cake, and I'll pass you with a D. Of course, you will have the rest of the year to—"

The rest of the woman's words fell onto deaf ears as the promise of passing clashed with the nightmarish thought of making yet another cake. She had barely stopped talking when Tezuka dashed out of the room, skipping his homeroom meeting. He had barely pulled his outdoor shoes and overcoat on when he ran out of the school, clutching his school bag in one arm and the container with the cake in his other hand. He sprinted to the train station with only one destination in mind, fully aware that he was being rash and that his mother would at best scold him until his ears bled for not going home first. During the entire trip to Kanagawa, Tezuka tried to keep himself from fidgeting as he remembered one of the many conversations he and Sanada had shared the past Sunday.

"What is the point of learning to bake a cake?" Tezuka remembers having muttered. "Isn't this the wife's job?"

Sanada had then surprised Tezuka with a bizarre question that only now made sense in the brunette's mind.

"Whose job would it be if there was no wife?"

As the train reached his desired stop in Kanagawa, Tezuka's adrenaline had diminished, and he calmly walked the rest of the distance to Sanada's house. He hoped that Sanada would be home, and when he reached the house and rang the doorbell, he sighed in relief at the sight of his boyfriend. Needless to say, Sanada was surprised to see Tezuka looking a bit disheveled and manic on his doorstep on a weeknight.

"Kunimitsu?" Sanada finally ventured to say when Tezuka only stared.

Tezuka held up the box with the burnt cake.

"Sensei is giving me another chance," he explained without truly explaining anything.

Tezuka disregarded the look of confusion on Sanada's face, and before the other boy could utter a word, Tezuka bowed and asked a solemnly as he could in his moment of uncharacteristic impulsiveness.

"Genichirou, may I be your wife?"

**END**

a/n: This was written for a crack exchange on LiveJournal. I realize now how many holes are in this piece, but hey, I still like it... For anyone who is interested, there is an NC17 extended counterpart to this fic on my LJ.


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